Author's Note:
Sorry everyone who's reading How it All Began, I needed to write more fluff which is difficult to incorporate into Lily and James's second year. This was an idea that struck me just today and I wanted to start it before I got too many ideas and forgot them all. If you haven't already, please read and review my two other stories, How it All Began and Then the Rains Came. In the mean time, I present to you, from the vast abyss of my partially insane mind and the genius of the incredible JK Rowling, Taking Care of Business.
Ch. 1 – Reminiscing
Lily flashed a convincing saleswoman smile at the rather cute boy standing in the kitchens and handed him her application. She needed money, bad. There weren't many job opportunities in her small town just outside Bath. She had had to borrow Petunia, her sister's, car to drive into the tourist city to apply for jobs at various restaurants. She assumed she would get good tips from Americans and other fools who didn't realize one pound wasn't equivalent to one dollar.
The boy grinned back at her. "Put in a good word for me, will you?" Lily asked, putting on a pleading look.
"That I can do, Miss," he scanned her application form, "Evans." Lily smiled again then left the corner café, named Bath's Old Style Grotto. It was an inviting looking building, made of brick with a little patio and small tables out front. The windows had small flower boxes with various colored Petunias in them.
"Petunia!" Lily gasped with a start. She had promised to return her sister's car by four, it was already three thirty and the traffic was brutal. Lily jumped in and started the car, rumbling down the rugged cobblestone road. "Maybe a little magic wouldn't be so bad," she commented to herself. Lily was going to be attending her seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry come September. She was officially of age two days ago, when she turned seventeen, but had sworn to renounce magic for the summer in an attempt to bridge the gap between her and her sister. Petunia hated everything out of the ordinary. She had become increasingly rude to Lily since Lily had been accepted to Hogwarts at age eleven. Lily suspected her big sister was jealous. She had once gone to Petunia whenever she didn't understand something but when Lily returned to the Evan's household from Hogwarts she was full of information Petunia would never get from Eton Academy. Petunia's new boyfriend, Vernon, did nothing to help. He hated Lily for reasons unknown to Lily herself.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!" Lily screamed to herself at the long line of cars in front of her. Petunia would make her take the train if she was late to return the rusty old Chevy. "The radio doesn't even work," Lily commented to herself as a scratchy sounding Supremes song began to play. In her impatience Lily found herself humming along to the tune of You Can't Hurry Love long after it had stopped playing. A fly buzzed obnoxiously against the windshield as if it didn't realize the window was wide open. Lily drummed her fingers on the dashboard until finally she pulled into the dirt driveway of her old, farm style house, twenty minutes too late.
"Where have you been?" Petunia demanded, slamming the screen door against the wall as she stormed across the porch. "I've been waiting for ages. You aren't using my car again!"
"I'm sorry, Petunia. The traffic was terrible, you should have seen those tourists; they just do not understand rotaries!" Lily called as she stepped out of the car and handed Petunia the keys, trying to lighten her sister's mood.
"Don't you vent to me about rotaries," Petunia started although Lily was far from venting, "You can take the damned subway for all I care. I'm late to meet Vernon." With that Petunia floored out of the driveway and sped down the road, dust clouds rising up behind her.
Lily sighed. Her sister would come around. She was just a bit snappy after, after everything that had happened. Lily entered her small house and looked around. The ceiling fan rotated lazily over the dark brown wooden table. Her owl Cerci flew over to her arm and nuzzled her ear. Lily petted his tawny feathers as she lowered herself onto a stool at the small table. Sun bleached curtains wafted lazily next to the gently humming refrigerator. Memories of her past flashed in Lily's mind of the happier days Lily had spent in that kitchen.
Lily was four; she was casing Petunia around the back yard. She finally gave up and went inside for a glass of lemonade. Her mother was sitting at the table, peeling potatoes.
"Hi mommy," Lily called to her mother, "Do you want any help?"
"Oh, Lily sweetie, come here and help your mother with these potatoes," her mother grinned at Lily. Wisps of Leila Evan's hair were stuck to her face with sweat on that hot autumn day. A pitcher of lemonade sat on the table, covered in condensation. Lily pulled up a chair and poured herself a glass, grabbing her first potato.
Lily had three peeled already when Leila hand slipped. Bits of badly chopped potato peel flew around the room. Leila's knife soared across the room and stopped quivering with its point dug into the wall. The glass pitcher sloshed over and fell on the floor shattering. Lily and her mother just looked at each other for a moment then burst out laughing hysterically.
Lily smiled to herself and stood walking up the stairs to her room. Sitting on her daybed, Lily gazed at the vast fields behind her house. Her mother truly had been the worst with every household task you threw at her. This thought brought on a new memory.
She was six; Lily had been outside all morning climbing trees and causing a general ruckus in the hencoop of her small farmhouse during her last days of vacation before she returned to school on September 5th. She entered her home and wandered through it. She didn't here her mother playing piano which was odd. Listening, Lily heard her mother's voice upstairs in the master bedroom. Then she heard her father angrily yelling. Lily followed the voices.
"You can't leave the girls, they need a mother!" Lily's father screamed, unaware that Lily had crept into the room.
"I can do whatever I damn want to," Lily's mother returned quietly. "I'm a bad mother any way. They don't need me. I can't cook, clean, garden, or do any other motherly task. I'm a burden on this household. You promised when we got married that it wouldn't be like this. You swore that I'd finally get my record deal and we'd have maids to do all the work that I can't. I'm sick of this. My mother was right; I never should have gotten married at seventeen. I'm leaving."
"You have to at least say goodbye. You need to tell them you're leaving," he half argued, half pleaded.
"You can do that, Patrick," Leila answered, her big green eyes so like Lily's smiled, "You're better at all the parenting stuff, including comforting them. By a week they'll forget they ever even had a mother." How wrong she was.
Leila picked up her bag and headed for the stairs; still, no one noticed Lily in the corner, not quite comprehending the situation.
At the door Patrick made one last attempt to keep his flighty wife, "Please, Leila," he whispered, his hand light on her elbow, "If not for the girls, stay for me. I need you; I love you."
"I'm sorry Patrick, I'll miss you, but you have to let me go," Leila stood on her tiptoes and kissed her husband's cheek for the last time. With that Leila Evans walked across the porch and rumbled away in her old pick-up truck. The bees still buzzed and the sun still shined on the little, quaint farmhouse but it had never contained such sorrow before.
Silent tears streamed down Lily's cheeks. When she had told Petunia what she saw her sister had blamed her for not saying something to stop heir mother. Lily partially blamed herself too. Her father had been in so much pain after that day.
Patrick left the house the day after his wife indefinitely. He hugged his daughters goodbye and promised he'd come back, "Your Papa will take good care of you while I'm gone," he told them referring to their grandfather Evans, "You be real good and don't cause him any trouble, you here?"
"Yes daddy," the girls answered dutifully. Patrick turned and marched out the door, off to London to search for Leila.
He had returned a week later. He had seen Leila once briefly but she wouldn't talk to him. He entered his house defeated by the world. For years he worked as hard as he could to keep his family together, but Leila had had a certain sparkle, a certain flair that could not be reproduced. The house always felt like it was missing something after that, like it had been built on quicksand instead of a firm foundation.
When Lily was twelve the pain finally became too much for Patrick to bear. He had gotten into the habit of drinking excessively after his wife left. One night he was extra sweet to Lily and Petunia, tucking them into their beds and talking with them for an hour. The last thing he said to them was "Goodnight my dears. I love you, always and forever." Patrick pulled the trigger that night, and left the world of his daughters eternally shattered.
Lily buried her face in her hands. She needed her father so bad. He was so proud when she was admitted to Hogwarts but Petunia was at a boarding school as well. He had been lonely in the house with just his father for company. After Patrick died Lily's Papa worked to take care of them, but now he had Alzheimer's and couldn't work anymore. Lily had to get a job for money to keep the house from being taken by the bank. And she needed it fast. She knew that once she returned to school in September she wouldn't be able to raise any more money. Petunia had a job at a hair salon but that didn't raise very much money. Thankfully she was out of school so she could work all year, but she refused to give Lily any money for school supplies.
As the sun set Lily raised herself from her bed and went back downstairs. She needed to cook dinner before her Papa woke back up. Here she had wasted an entire afternoon feeling sorry for herself. She despised self-pity.
A/N: This one is pretty depressing, don't you think? I'm surprised cause I'm not in a bad mood or anything. I know I promised lots of fluff for this story, don't worry, I'll get to that. Regardless, please, please, please review! I promise to work a lot on this and How it All Began while I'm on break. Meanwhile, I want lots of reviews from all of you! Love ya.